Orphan Bride (7 page)

Betty gave a shriek of joy and sprang to her feet. “Come on
”
she shouted.
“
You c
an
sing
us more songs while you cook.”

The children’s home was not far from Pennytor. The house had once been an old farmstead, but it had long ago fallen into disrepair.

Inside was a scene of desolation. Dirty dishes were piled in the sink, the fire was unlighted and the hea
rt
h unswept.

The fretful wail of a baby sounded from an upstairs room as they entered and a woman’s voice called weakly: “Betty!
I
thought I told you to stay out till Doctor’s been.”

T
he child dragged Jennet up the stairs and thrust her into an untidy room which smelt of dust and sickness.

“She’s Jennet Brown and she’s come to help,” she cried, and dashed off down the stairs to await results.

Jennet lo
o
ked at the woman in the bed, compassion swamping he
r
first indignation. She was quite young, although her dark hair already showed streaks of grey and her face, despite the
ma
rks of illness and neglect, had a patient dignity.

“Who are you?” she asked, soothing the whimpering baby beside her.

“I’m Jennet Brown,” said Jennet simply. “I live at Pennycross with Miss Emily Dane and I met yo
u
r children on the moor. I thought perhaps I could help.
”

The woman moved restlessly. “They
shouldn’t have brought you in today,” she murmured. “The ho
u
se doesn't always look like this, but I
’
ve
had the ’flu bad and so has little June and I don’t seem to pick up. We are too far from village help, even if we could afford it. Frankie—that’s my stepson—does his best, but he doesn’t get in till past six and leaves at seven in the morning. Poor boy, he’s only a lad.”

“Let me clean up and get things straight,
and perhaps leave you a meal for to-night. I could come every day until you’re better,” said Jennet shyly.

The woman regarded her with a puzzled frown, as if trying to place her.

“I didn’t know there was any young folks at Pennycross,” she said slowly. “But your people, this Miss Emily Dane—wouldn’t like you to be doing rough work for strangers.”

“I’m quite used to it,” Jennet said, evading the question of Emily’s wishes in the matter. “They adopted me, you see. They took me out of an orphanage
,
so you see I’m really a very suitable person to help y
o
u.”

“An institution?” For a moment interest and a
dark compassion flickered in the woman’s tired eyes. “You poor little soul—no one of your own. Still,
I don’t
know—
you’re only a child by the look of you.”

“Oh, please, Mrs.—”

“Thompson.”

“Mrs. Thompson. I loved your children and it would be something to do—someone to talk to. No one will miss me. I’m alone all day.”

Mrs. Thompson smiled and closed her eyes.
“Very well,” she said, and gave a deep sigh of thankfulness. “We’ll be grateful and no two ways about it.”

It was the first of many happy days. As long as the weather was fine Emily approved the long walks on the moor.

“I’m glad you’ve got over your fear of the moor," she said. “You look much better for all this fresh air. Julian will be pleased when he comes down.”

If Jennet felt guilty at deceiving Emily she did not weaken in her resolve to say nothing of her new activities. Emily, she felt, could not but approve of helping a sick neighbor, but Julian would be sure to raise some objection. There was the matter of her hands. She inspected them anxiously from time to time. They were getting rough again with work. He’s bound to notice, she told herself helplessly, then was thankful that he had decided not to come down this weekend.

Jennet did not meet Frankie until the week end, for she had to be home each day before it was dark. He was a shy still coltish youth, with a great gentleness for the children and his stepmother, and he listened as eagerly as any of them to the little songs she sang. They none of them
e
ver tired of hearing about the orphanage, and sitting in the freshly scrubbed kitchen with the firelight warm on all their young faces while she mended socks and pinafores, Jennet knew a well-being she had never before experienced.

“You miss it, don’t you?” Frankie said once.

“
The orphanage? Yes, I think I do.”

“But you wouldn’t really like to go back—not after living soft with comfortable folk?”

She considered. “No,
I suppose not, Frankie. No, of course not. I’ve been very lucky. It’s just that—well, we were all young at Blacker’s and there was noise and quite often fun.”

He propped his elbows on the table and looked at her with a puzzled expression.

“The people who’ve adopted you—are they very old, then?” he asked sympathetically.

“Well, Uncle Homer and Aunt Emily are elderly,” she replied, “but Cousin Julian isn’t. He’s only about thirty, I think, but he was badly injured in a crash and he can’t do very much.”

“
Cousin Julian sounds a bit of a menace,” he said.

“Oh, no, he isn’t really,” she protested quickly. “He thinks
o
f everything for me—and pays for everything, too.”

“Is he your guardian then?” he asked, frowning.

“No, he’s not my guardian. Aunt Emily is, I suppose. But Cousin Julian came to the orphanage and chose me.”

For two
weekends
Julian stayed away, and Jennet was able to spend her time with the Thompsons. They accepted her as one of their own, and Frankie’s shy eyes followed her, whatever she did, with unspoken affection. With him she explored Tor Raven and Ramstor and found the Druid hut circles on Lovacombe Down. He seemed to know almost as much as Mrs. Dingle about the legends of Dartmoor and told her many stories as they walked.

With Frankie beside her and spring hotfoot behind, she was no longer afraid of the moor. For that brief spell her happiness was unblemished. The affection which embraced the Thompson home, poor though it was, reached out to her, too, and lifted her to a plane she had always dreamed of in the orphanage. She went home each day wrapped in her new-found security and the first sense of independence she had known in all her sixteen years. She had made friends of her own, she had made a decision for herself, and her refusal to speak of these things at Pennycross was born only of a desire to keep her shining hour to herself.

On her return in the evening, Homer would sometimes look up from his magazine and observe her silently, his head on one side. Once Emily remarked, glancing at the clock:

“You’re late this evening. You mustn’t stop out once it’s dark, dear. You might get lost.”

“No, Aunt Emily, I won’t,” Jennet replied dutifully. But her great eyes shone and even Emily noticed that inner radiance which lit her small thin face
.
“You’re looking much better,” she said.

Homer spoke in his soft, hesitating voice.

“You have news, or a secret, dear child? Have you told the bees?”

She looked at him, startled. Did her happiness show so much?

“No, Uncle Homer,” she said gently.

“Then do so, my dear, before you tell us. Always tell the bees first, or they will be offended.”

He went back to his magazine, and Jennet slipped out of the room and out of the house, through the orchard to the corner where Homer’s white-painted hives stood in neat rows in the long grass.

She stood for a moment listening to the gentle hum which came from them, then she clasped her hands and said softly:

“Oh, Bees, I have made friends of my own. Oh, Bees,
please let me keep my friends for ever, Amen.”

When Julian came the next day it seemed to Jennet that he was more exacting than usual. He took exception to a new sweater Emily had bought for her and told her not to wear it when he was in the house, and he found fault with her accent and her grammar.

“I hope your singing is of a higher standard,”
he remarked, “or I shall scarcely think it
worthwhile
keeping up those lessons. Let me see your hands.”

It was the moment Jennet had been dreading. She proffered him her hands, curling the fingers inwards,
trying to hide their roughness.

He took them in his, straightening out the fingers and frowning as he turned them over.

“Your nails are better,” he admitted, “but what have you been doing to get your hands in this state? Mrs. Dingle doesn’t persuade you to help in the kitchen, does she?”

“Oh, no,” said Jennet, alarmed. “I never help Mrs. Dingle.”

“Then how do you account for these?” She shook her head dumbly, and he went on: “You can’t have been paying them enough attention. Wear gloves and attend to them properly at nights.”

“
Yes, Cousin Julian,” she said, and escaped from him before he could think of a fresh criticism.

Emily noticed her nephew’s shortness of temper, but she saw, too, that he was nervy and on edge with pain.

“
Is your leg worse?” she asked him in the evening as he stood in front of the fire, seemingly unable to sit still for any length of time.

“Yes, it’s been damnable this last week,” he admitted. “Gregory thinks they’ll have to operate again. I wish to God they’d take it off and have done with it.”

She was silent for a little, wondering if it would come to that eventually.

“Why don’t you stop here for a few months and see what rest and the moorland air will do for you?” she proposed at last.

“No, Aunt Emily, I won’t upset your household arrangements to that extent,” he told her with a grin. “Though it’s a kindly thought and I appreciate it.”

“Well, after all,” she said a little apologetically, “Pennycross is to all intents and purposes your house. I think you have a right to use it as your home.”

“And so I do. No, Aunt Emily, what would I do here? I can’t walk any distance, I can’t ride, I’ve never got very interested i
n
gardening. I’m best off in London where I have my friends and my flat. But I may stop for a week or so next month and have a bit of a rest if you’ll have me. We’ll hire a car and take the child round a bit, shall we?”

Emily smiled.

“
You
can take the child round,” she retorted. “You know I loathe motori
n
g. Are you pleased with your orphan, Julian?”

He passed a hand rather wearily over his thick black hair.

“I’m afraid I rather jumped on her this afternoon,” he said regretfully. “I must try and not let this blasted pain
get on top of me so much. I want to hear her sing before I go. One day she must have decent lessons.”

But when, on Sunday afternoon he asked Jennet to sing something for him, she felt her throat immediately constrict.

“Oh, I couldn’t,” she said quickly.

He frowned.

“
Why not? It’s some time since I’ve heard you.
”

He played better than Luke, she realized, with a surer, more sensitive touch.
“
Don’t you think that, as I provide the lessons, I have the right to hear the results?
”

“Yes.”

“Well, come along then.”

She came unwillingly to stand beside him, and he stopped playing and glanced up at her.

“What’s the matter? Are you afraid of me?” he asked.

She lowered her eyes.

“No.”

“Shy, then?” He knew she was shy.

She nodded.

“A little. You’re very critical.”

“Am I? But criticism’s valuable when one is learning.”

He held out his hand. “Well, sing me something, anyway. Here, give me your music.”

She chose “Searching for Lambs” because the wistful, nostalgic little air required no volume, and because she loved the words:

“...
I’d rather rest on a true love’s breast,

Than any other where...”

She stopped. She had forgotten her nervousness and Julian, and thought only of the meaning of the lines. “Go on,” said Julian softly. “There’s another
verse.” She knew there was another verse, the best of them all.

“For I am thine and thou art mine,

No man shall uncomfort thee:

We’ll join our hands in wedded bands

And a-ma
r
ried we will be.”

She stopped singing, and edged away to her stool by the fire. Julian lifted his hands from the keys and examined them thoughtfully.

“You like that song, don’t you?” he said then.

“Yes, I like it.”

“You shall sing it for me again,” he said, and shut the piano abruptly.

He made
n
o
comment or criticism on her voice, but he brushed a band lightly over her hair as he limped past her to the door.